


Those Above Serve Those Below

by Anonymous



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Fae & Fairies, Gen, Gore, Monsters, Post-Canon, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 06:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20848718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Lady Pole is disturbed in an evening by a curious individual.





	Those Above Serve Those Below

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isilloth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isilloth/gifts).

Lady Pole put down her pen and looked directly at the window. It gave away nothing--a mere collection of six black squares neatly arranged in their frames. The tapping did not reoccur, so she turned back to her letter, wiped and dipped her pen, and began to write anew.

She ignored the next tapping; at the third, she wiped the nub of her pen, set it on its pillow, picked up the white-handled pen-knife at her right hand and strode to the window, throwing it wide open.

A blast of autumn wind brought in a smattering of rain, droplets so small they barely merited the name. It blowed and whistled in Starecross's trees, rattled the waterspout, and blew Emma's curls from her forehead. No tapper appeared; no branch or hail smacked into the open window.

“All right,” said Emma. “I can smell you, you filthy wretch. Come out and say your piece.”

A moment's wait produced a small hand, its fingers long and slimy, their tips wide like suckers. It wrapped itself around the windowsill, followed by another. Emma grabbed her knife's handle harder and stepped back as the creature hauled itself up.

Its eyes were large like tea-saucers; its mouth wide and toothless; its skin the green of a pond of still water in late summer. “Pretty lady. Won't you invite me in?”

“I certainly will not, and if you try to come in, I will cast you out like a piece of rubbish.”

It held its hands up. “No, no! Don't do that. I am miserable and cold and hungry.”

“Stay that way.” Emma moved to close the window on the thing's face.

“Please, please!" it keened. “I only want a little blood, a little nourishment. Then I will be gone and never come back.”

“Liar," said Emma and pushed the window closed, but a webbed hand stuck between.

“No, I do not lie! Feed me, and I will go if you wish me to, I swear! If you do not, I will be back tomorrow night, and every night after that.”

Emma considered. It was true that fairies did not lie directly, only by omission and trickery. But no--fairies could not be trusted, and one was nest never engaging with them in the first place. Emma banged the window on the hand until it withdrew, and then latched it firmly.

No more tapping was heard that night at Starecross.

Next night when the tapping resumed, just as Emma had finally settled into her reading, she sighed, picked up a candle in its older and went to fetch Mr Segundus. The two of them regarded the creature together as it sat shyly on the window-sill. It had grown to the size of a child.

“A ghost of some description?" Segundus ventured.

“A fairy,” said Emma firmly. “I will never forget that reek.”

“Ah, so,” said Segundus mildly, and made a note in his little black accounting-book, which Emma doubted contained any actual accounting.

“Sir,” Emma said, “I am glad of the use of your house for my writing. The seclusion has been most welcome. However, I must say, having a fairy sit at my window _tapping_ at me at night is not conducive to the intellectual process.”

“Perhaps it wants something?”

The creature nodded enthusiastically. “Food.”

“Well, we can spare him some, surely--"

“Human blood,” said the creature, baring toothless gums in a merry smile. “A young boy, perhaps? Oh, the young are scrumptious!"

“I believe a banishing ritual would be in order,” said Emma.

“You may be right," said Segundus, and they closed the window on the creature again.

On the third night, Emma did not bother to attempt reading or writing, but sat in contemplation in her chair, with a candle at her right, and her pen-knife in her hands. She played with it, testing the tip, running her fingertips along the handle's carvings. Chalk drawings covered the walls and the floor. Mr Segundus had said it was an excellent opportunity to attempt recreations of Aureate banishing spheres. Emma cared not; she had all the protection she needed.

The window creaked, and she looked up. The slimy green hands were the same, but larger again. It hauled its dripping body onto the windowsill, pushed it's redrimmed head in, sucked breath in through its toothless mouth. “I am here for my alms. For your kindness, pretty lady. For the heat of your veins. You owe me--"

“Nonsense,” said Emma, standing up with a sigh and rearranging her skirts. “I have never met you before you came knocking on my window.”

“Oh, but you have," said the creature in the voice of muddy footprints. “I brought you sweets while you danced in my lord's house. I placed new shoes on your feet when your old ones wore out from dancing. I starved while you ate. I worked while you rejoiced.”

Emma frowned. “I did not want any of those things."

“But you had them,” said the creature, “and I did not. And now I am here to eat you.”

Emma's fingers loosened around the knife. “I--"

“_I am hungry._"

She remembered that little page boy, the changeling with ancient eyes, the slack jaw, the scarred hands. She had barely noticed him. The dancing and the crumbling stone and those terrible eyes of the king--her own predicament--had occupied her wholly.

Emma lifted the knife in her hand, its silver blade glinting in the candle light, pure and beautiful. How many meals was that one knife worth? How many wretches had she left behind in the brugh when she had escaped?

Which of them was the enemy?

He dropped on to the floor, foot smudging chalk, and shuffled across the floor like a hesitant lover. “Stop,” she whispered. “I will feed you.”

“Feed me now?” the creature whined.

“Yes. Right now.” She drew the blade across her own hand and held it out to him. All her magically imbued youth and vigor, won with the price of half her life, pooled red in her palm and flowed to her fingers.

A wretch he was, and there was no doubt about it. But wretches deserved to come in from the cold too, did they not? That was a _Christian_ value. And she could use every ally she could get in her fight for justice. For herself, for every woman trapped under man's nonsensical rule.

“I believe," she said gently as he lapped at her palm, “you and I may yet be friends."


End file.
